Statue of Nazi ally vandalised

An unnamed group in Dublin claimed responsibility last night for vandalising the statue of an IRA leader linked to the Nazis in the Second World War.

The group said it had severed the head and right arm of the statue in Dublin's Fairview Park in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

They said that as Europe prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, they could no longer tolerate a statue in honour of Sean Russell.

Russell was commanding officer of the IRA during the Second World War and conducted a campaign of assassination and sabotage in both Britain and Ireland, aimed at damaging the war effort against Hitler.

Although an open ally of the Nazis, Russell is still honoured by the modern IRA and Sinn Fein. In September 2003, Sinn Fein MEP Mary Lou McDonald spoke at a rally to commemorate Russell in the north Dublin park. The same rally was also addressed by veteran IRA man Brian Keenan.

In a statement released this weekend, the group claiming to be behind the attack on the statue said: 'Six million Jews, thousands of political dissidents, homosexuals, Roma people, Soviet prisoners of war and the disabled were put to death by the fascist hate machine that overran and terrified Europe from 1939 to 45.

'Sean Russell was one of many nationalist fanatics who looked to Hitler for political and military support in the IRA's quest to reunify Ireland at the point of the bayonets of the Gestapo.

'At the Wansee conference, the infamous Nazi gathering that planned the "Final Solution", the Jewish community in Ireland was marked down for annihilation. Having freed Ireland from British rule, the Nazis expected their collaborators to help them round up Dublin's Jews and ship them off to Auschwitz. That was the price Sean Russell was prepared to pay to end partition.'

It is understood the vandalism took place between late Thursday night and the early hours of New Year's Eve. There has been no sign of either the head or the arm of the statue.